Willie Chan, who groomed Jackie Chan to stardom, dies at 76
HONG KONG: Willie Chan, film producer and long-time manager of Jackie Chan, has died at the age of 76.
He died in his sleep, between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, local time.
Born in Malaysia as Chan Chi-keung, and educated partly in Hawaii, Chan moved to Hong Kong in 1970. That was just as Bruce Lee mania was at its peak, and was propelling the Hong Kong film industry, which is made up of many exiles from Greater China, into a production boom. Chan quickly met Jackie Chan through actor Charlie Chin. Jackie Chan was working as a stunt man. With Hong Kong looking for a new male action hero following Lee’s untimely death, Willie Chan found Jackie Chan his first starring role in Lo Wei’s 1976 film New Fist of Fury.
Their 38-year relationship weathered the ups and downs of Jackie Chan’s early career, including self-imposed exile in Australia, and an unsuccessful first attempt to break into Hollywood. Hong Kong’s golden era brought both opportunities and Triad gangster interference, which Willie Chan as a talent manager felt directly.
Although unrelated, Willie and Chan often described themselves as brothers. It was reported that the pair never signed a talent management contract.
A kind and bustling man, who often shielded his bulging eyes behind dark glasses, Chan in 1985 co-founded JCE Group. That was the vehicle for the pair to develop and produce many of Jackie Chan’s movies for the next several decades. They included several of his US titles, such as Shanghai Noon and The Tuxedo, after Jackie Chan made a more successful second attempt to work in the Hollywood.